


You Will Not Walk Alone

by Noxnoctisanima



Category: Emelan - Tamora Pierce
Genre: Friendship, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-12-22
Updated: 2011-12-22
Packaged: 2017-10-27 19:09:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,020
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/299098
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Noxnoctisanima/pseuds/Noxnoctisanima
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Tris is getting everything she wants but she is still lonely.</p>
            </blockquote>





	You Will Not Walk Alone

**Author's Note:**

  * For [nahco3](https://archiveofourown.org/users/nahco3/gifts).



Tris pushed a few sweaty tendrils of escaped hair off her forehead and puffed out her breath. The more junior the student the further up in the boarding houses they tended to be put. Not that she minded, weather witches liked heights but her plump body was never meant for long stair climbs.

 

Tris sighed for a moment before sending a wave of awareness back down the stairs, finding no one there she teased in a tendril of breeze. The temperature dropped a little and she smiled as the friendly wind ruffled the few tiny curls left out of her braids. She loved how friendly the winds were here, they were light and fun and just about the only company she'd had for the last few months. Tris had never been good at making friends, her prickly personality saw to that but she had forgotten with all the discomfort over her magic that she was still very bad at it. Tris was once used to being alone but after years of company from her foster-siblings and Nico and her own students she found it hard to have no one to talk to.

 

Despite the reforming of their circle Tris had still decided to attend Lightsbridge, the others might understand her distaste for most of the work weather mages could be put to but they had never desired normality as she had. They had still supported her though, there was none of the lingering hostility there had been after they last split up for adventures. They had waved her goodbye and sent letters and while they obviously missed her and were vaguely baffled by her choice there was none of the damage that had been there last time.

 

Tris pulled her door key from her belt and unlocked the door to her room. As she pushed it open and stepped inside a collection of sparks flew into her hand ready to be launched at the lazing figure on her bed.

 

“You really need to get a magicing on those locks, any thief worth their salt could pick that in under a minute.” Briar smiled at her while walking a knife across his knuckles.

 

“You're not supposed to be here! I can't be normal if everyone knows who I am!”

 

Briar snorted and leaned back.

 

“No mage-bag is going to cotton onto me coppercurls, I feel almost insulted by your lack of trust in my skills.”

 

“How did I not notice you.” She reaches to the vaguely green tinged empty spot in her mind and finds it still blocked for a moment before Briar bursts to life and she can fell his familiar amusement.

 

“I figured if you didn't expect to find me, you wouldn't notice me if I blocked off the link again. Surprises are a lot more fun in person.” He looks overly smug and as annoyed as Tris would be it is so good to see him.

 

Tris may have chosen to leave Summersea but she had hated doing it, hated leaving their comfortable little house with her friends always there in her mind. She had to though, had to try for normal, for a living that didn't involve moral grey areas and didn't leave people muttering after her.

 

“Well what are you doing in Lightsbridge Briar? Last I heard you were wooing your way through Emelan.”

 

Briar stretched and examined his nails in a way that was completely nonchalant but yet still managed to telegraph I DID SOMETHING WRONG.

 

Tris sighed.

 

“Was it a father or a husband?”

 

Sometimes despite all that time apart she knew him too well.

 

“Father, but I didn't even get her pregnant!” His voice rose with what she felt was completely unjustified indignation. “He's one of those silly sods that thinks a virgin bride is important.” He scoffed.

 

Tris sighed again in exasperation, Briar was making such a mess of his inconvenient hormonal phase. He was lucky she had such fondness for him or her sympathy may have been less bland disappointment and more violently temperamental.

 

“So I'm to assume you've come to hide up here with me?” She shoved him over (with just a little spark of lighting because she was feeling a bit cranky) and sat down on her bed. “Well at least you decided to visit during the summer, it's bitterly cold here in winter, I don't know how Daja spent so long in Namorn.”

 

Briar leans into her and for a moment they're nothing more than the two mage-children who napped atop the thatch on warm days.

 

They're not those children any more, now they each have their scarring memories, each have their grown up lives and it is hard sometimes for Tris not to try and fit herself into a skin she has already outgrown. She would never give up the memories and the knowledge she gained in her travels, the good she was able to do, but she still mourns that she was not there to grow up with her foster-siblings that it took almost being imprisoned by an Empress for them to connect again and there is still holes in what they know of each other.

 

There is a sharp stab in her chest and Tris remembers how much she has missed the presence of her family.

 

“What are you going to do while visiting? I have classes I can't entertain you the whole time.”

 

Briar smiled at her prickliness.

 

“Don't fear mother, I brought my Shakkans and I’m sure I’ll be more than busy enough to keep out of your hair.” He's flipping his knife again and Tris can almost feel his avoidance.

 

Briar didn't mention that the mess in Summersea could have been fixed with a serious conversation and a bit of grovelling and that even if it hadn't it wasn't serious enough to travel nearly a month to Lightsbridge.

 

Tris didn't mention that she'd already figured that out and she was just grateful that Briar would travel so far to keep her company. She leant back again next to Briar and just enjoyed having at least some of her family back with her.

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> Sorry I couldn't get the romance in there for you, I tried but they just didn't want to.


End file.
